@bookstodon As we approach the end of 2023, I would love to know about the very best books you read this year. (They don't have to have been published in 2023 for your "best of" list.)
@kimlockhartga@bookstodon
House of Odysseus by Claire North
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
This is How Your Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
Translation State by Ann Leckie
A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
Circe by Madeline Miller
Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz
The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older
Babel by RF Kuang
@kimlockhartga@bookstodon Tell Me an Ending by Jo Harkin
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
The World We Make by NK Jemisin
@kimlockhartga@bookstodon Down and Out: Surviving the Homelessness Crisis, by Daniel Levelle - an own voice description of modern homelessness and its causes.
@Rhube@bookstodon I don't think most people understand what living rough is like. If we believe in our humanity, we should be addressing the problem of the unhoused with compassion.
@kimlockhartga@bookstodon Absolutely. I've come close to being unhoused, but have never been myself. I'm writing an SF stories and wanted to include unhoused people, but was aware of my lack of experience - I came very close to it in 2014, but was saved from the street by a GoFundMe. I've felt the fear, but not truly th experience, which is why I sought own voices accounts. Lavelle has not only been unhoused, he has interviewed dozens of others and their families.
@kimlockhartga@bookstodon His book makes clear both how easy it is to slip through the cracks in our support systems, and how difficult it is to get back once you have. And how those systems are not well-designed to help neurodiverse and disabled people, of victims of abuse.
I was struck by how close his story was to mine; how a few advantages kept me 'safe' from the streets, but only just. And about how unregulated the services that exist to help are. How by handing them off to charities>
@kimlockhartga@bookstodon >and private companies with little oversight, the government leaves th system open to abuse, callousness, and the mistakes that arise where people aren't adequately trained.
And how often people are blamed for things that were outside of their control, and this is used as a reason to deny them services.
I thought a lot about that this year as I went though the tortuous system required to reach an agreement from doctors and my employers that I could no longer work>
@kimlockhartga@bookstodon >due to disability, instead of simply quitting, which would have been better for my health. It was hell, but I kept in th back of my mind how Lavelle was denied housing initially because he left housing 'voluntarily' to avoid the stress of eviction. I'm quite sure I would not have the paltry benefits I have now without that.
The very systems that should help are run as a mechanism of punishment for being poor and disabled.
Four Thousand Weeks - Burkeman
A Psalm for the Wild-Built - Becky Chambers
Babel - RF Kuang
The Fifth Season - NK Jemisin
Listen to the Land Speak - Manchán Magan
@kimlockhartga@bookstodon totally agree! I found some really good stuff, especially after not reading much fiction for many years. That was silly, so I’m correcting my mistake :-)
@kimlockhartga@bookstodon My favorites this year are Northwoods by Daniel Mason, The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, In Ascension by Martin MacInnes, The Covenant of Water by Abraham Vergese, Matrix by Lauren Groff and O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker. The last being a recommendation from #Bookstodon people.
@Arlenecw@bookstodon holy moly this is an incredible list of mighty authors. So glad you got to read so many great books. I'm dying to read In Ascension.
@kimlockhartga@bookstodon
A Volga Tale by Guzel Yakhina
A Different Drummer by William Melvin Kelley
The Bridge of Beyond by Simone Schwarz-Bart
Arboreality by Rebecca Campbell
@JD_Cunningham@bookstodon These are all new to me. So, now I'm intrigued. I'm still working on mine. It will only be books published in 2023, 'cause I gotta narrow it down somehow.
@kimlockhartga@bookstodon Thanks! FWIW it got a starred review in Publishers Weekly and made the Scientific American Best of 2023 list. Hope you get a chance to read it!
@kimlockhartga@bookstodon going over my full list in a few weeks but likely in my top 5 is Michael Harriot’s Black AF History: The Unwhitwashed History of America which really should (seriously) be adopted as a textbook in classrooms across the country. It should be read by every American.
@kimlockhartga@bookstodon
The last two weeks of december are normally one of my most intensive phase of reading, so I'll wait till Christmas with my top ten.
@kimlockhartga@bookstodon Planning to write something on this in the next couple of weeks, but I can say that having never read any Raymond Chandler, I am REALLY enjoying "The Big Sleep". Hoping to finish it tonight... #books#bookstodon
Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These
Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street
Philip Pullman's Once Upon a Time in the North
Percival Everett's Dr. No
Debbie Tung's Quiet Girl in a Noisy World
Bart van Es' The Cut Out Girl
Louise Penny's A World of Curiosities
Martha Gellhorn's Travels with Myself and Another
Madeline Miller's Galatea
Damon Galgut's The Promise
James McBride's The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
@kimlockhartga@bookstodon I enjoyed 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and I also enjoyed To Be Taught, If Fortunate, by Becky Chambers, two very different books that I've kept thinking about months after I read them.
@kimlockhartga@bookstodon
One Second After by W. Forstchen
Demon Copperhead by Kingsolver
The Half Moon by M. Keene
Yellowface by R. F. Kuang
Chasing the Boogeyman by R. Chizmar
@kimlockhartga@veirling@bookstodon "In 2023 people will be riding ebikes to work when they aren't using teleconferencing to work from home, and there will be measles outbreaks due to poor vaccination, while a religious fundamentalist is elected president." All written in the 90's. I catch myself thinking "thank goodness the rest of the horrors weren't accurate" before reminding myself that for some in our society, they kind of are.
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